For anyone who didn’t read it when Lehigh Valley Music announced Monday that Rusted Root and Leigh Nash of Sixpence None The Richer will be playing Musikfest Café at ArtsQuest Center at SteetStacks in Bethlehem (was there anyone who didn’t read it?), ArtsQuest made the same announcement today.

Tickets for Coldplay’s first North American tour in nearly three years — including a July 5 stop at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center — will go on sale to the public at 10 a.m. Dec. 17 at www.ComcastTIX.com, www.LiveNation.com, Wells Fargo Center Box Office or by phone at 800-298-4200.

Chris Isaak, the crooner who had the hit "Wicked Game" in 1990 and “Somebody’s Crying” in 1995, will play a Christmas show at Allentown Symphony Hall on Dec. 14.

Chris Isaak

His latest album, “Beyond The Sun,” released in October, has him singing the songs of the glory days of Memphis' Sun Studio -- Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and "I Walk the Line," Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire," Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love" and "It's Now or Never," Carl Perkins' "Dixie Fried" and more, plus a few new originals.

In preparation for the show, Lehigh Valley Music conducted an e-mail interview with Isaak, asking about the new album, his career and his shows at Penn’s Peak near Jim Thorpe this spring and Bethlehem’s Musikfest festival in 2009.

A pair of pieces with a distinctly French voice joined two familiar Bach works in the Bach Choir of Bethlehem Christmas concerts, on Saturday at the First Presbyterian Church of Allentown and on Sunday at the First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem.

Musikfest Café at ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem has been pretty aggressive lately about announcing its upcoming shows, but there are at least two coming up they haven’t told you about, and which aren’t on the venue’s website yet.

Country singer Crystal Gayle’s stay at the top of the charts was surprisingly short for the number of hits she produced – 16 No. 1s in a 10-year stretch from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.

It was a shame, then, that Gayle gave even shorter attention to that period in a concert Saturday at Gypsies night club at Mount Airy Casino in Mount Pocono, taking just 15 minutes to play just five of her hits in a set of 17 full-length songs and two medleys that made up a 75-minute show.

The Dan Band played both the foul-mouthed wedding singers in the 2003 movie “Old School” and the foul-mouthed wedding singers in the 2009 movie “The Hangover.”

The Dan Band, with Dan Finnerty in front

But for more than a decade, the band has grown a cult following as a group of men singing girl-power tunes such as Beyonce’s “Single Ladies,” Laura Brannigan’s “Gloria” and even Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.” They are sung, words unchanged, in awkward, testosterone-fueled performances.

In a telephone interview to promote the band’s show Dec. 15 at Musikfest Cafe at the ArtsQuest Center in Bethlehem to raise funds for two nonprofits, Lauren's Hope Foundation and Children With Brain Injuries, front man Dan Finnerty spoke about the band’s beginnings, its “evolution” and how in the heck it’s still around all this time later.

Wilson Phillips’s concert Friday at Musikfest Café at ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem didn’t exactly take its sold-out audience back to the 1990s.

Nor did it offer some unexpected act into which the trio had evolved over the two decades since it ruled the airwaves with four No. 1 songs in a year, making it the best-selling female group of all time.

But the radio station WIOQ-FM 102.1’s Q102 Jingle Ball on Thursday at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia pushed the limit Wednesday with a show that featured 14 performers and lasted nearly seven hours.

Big Time Rush at Wednesday's Jingle Ball at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia

Singer Avril Lavigne, who at the end of September denied speculation that she was pregnant after being photographed in a big, figure-hiding shirt, might have fueled further speculation by repeating the wardrobe choice Wednesday’s Jingle Ball concert at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

When Conrad Birdie, as played by Jon Lynch, swaggers onstage in his gold lame suit in the Stagemakers at the J's production of "Bye Bye Birdie" many think the hip-swinging teen idol is a thinly disguished Elvis Presley. But the musical, inspired in part by the media circus of Presley's being drafted into the army in 1958, also draws inspiration as well as the name of the title character, from another singer.

The title characters, two 20-something guys who consider themselves ultra-cool are driving together when Wilson Phillips’ song “Hold On” comes on. Despite desperately trying not to, they end up rocking out to the tune.

More than two decades after a debut disc that gave Chynna Phillips and sisters Carnie and Wendy Wilson the dizzying success of three No. 1 singles, 5 million albums sold and four Grammy Award nominations, their vocal harmonies still have that type of hold on listeners.

On Thursday morning, I’m going to post my Top 5 Concerts of the Week as I always do. But today I’ll give you a scoop: Chris Isaak’s show Dec. 14 at Allentown Symphony Hall will be among them.

I’m telling you this because Isaak is simply an underappreciated artist. I’ve seen him live twice, and both times have been delighted not only by his good songs and his very good voice, but by his fun, energetic performance. His songs "Wicked Game" and "Somebody's Crying" are classic-level tunes.

And to persuade more people to see him – even if it’s just two more -- I’m going to run a contest with the prize being two tickets to see Isaak live at Symphony Hall.

The 13th annual Lehigh Valley Music Awards, held Sunday at Musikfest Café in Bethlehem, really did – as Executive Director Gloria Domina said representatives of the Grammy Awards told her – have the most professional feel of any ceremony in its history.

But what really helped make the awards successful was some great performances among the night’s 16.

Former E Street Band member Vini Lopez plays with Steel Mill at Sunday's Lehigh Valley Music AwardsPhotos by Monica Cabrera/The Morning Call

They call the show "Drumline Live!" Yep, it's got drums -- snares, bass, a kit. And it's got brass -- trombones, trumpets, sousaphones. And it's got uniforms and choreographed moves. But this is a drumline on steroids. The music travels far from marches -- to hip-hop, Motown, jazz. The choreography redefines the term formation and the "marchers" included seductive women. And the uniforms, well, there was as much glitter as buttoned up pant suits.

People have many different memories of the '60s. Peter Noone reminds people of a part that is often forgotten – that they were often exciting and fun.

Noone, who gained fame as lead singer for British pop/rock band Herman’s Hermits, told lots of stories as he headlined the 25th annual Camelot for Children Christmas Spectacular Saturday night at Allentown Symphony Hall.

JOHN J. MOSER has been around long enough to have seen the original Ramones in a small club in New Jersey, U2 from the fourth row of a theater and Bob Dylan's born-again tours. But he also has the number for All-American Rejects' Nick Wheeler on his cell phone, wrote the first story ever done on Jack's Mannequin and hung out in Wiz Khalifa's hotel room.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

JODI DUCKETT: As The Morning Call's assistant features editor responsible for entertainment, she spends a lot of time surveying the music landscape and sizing up the Valley's festivals and club scene. She's no expert, but enjoys it all — especially artists who resonated in her younger years, such as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Tracy Chapman, Santana and Joni Mitchell.

KATHY LAUER-WILLIAMS enjoys all types of music, from roots rock and folk to classical and opera. Music has been a constant backdrop to her life since she first sat on the steps listening to her mother’s Broadway LPs when she was 2. Since becoming a mother herself, she has become well-versed on the growing genre of kindie rock and, with her son in tow, can boast she has seen a majority of the current kid’s performers from Dan Zanes to They Might Be Giants.

STEPHANIE SIGAFOOS: A Jersey native raised in Northeast PA, she was reared in a house littered with 8-tracks, 45s and cassette tapes of The Beatles, Elvis, Meatloaf and Billy Joel. She also grew up on the sounds of Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw and can be found traversing the countryside in search of the sounds of a steel guitar. A fan of today's 'new country,' she digs mainstream/country-pop crossovers like Lady Antebellum and Sugarland and other artists that illustrate the genre's diversity.